Talk:vworp

RFV discussion: February–May 2020

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

vworp

Sound made by Doctor Who's TARDIS. Needs to meet WT:FICTION i.e. independent of reference to the fictional universe. Barely possible? Equinox ◑ 20:59, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I managed to find one cite of the interjection (the sound of any materialization) in a thread that never (AFAICT) mentions the words "Doctor" or "TARDIS", in a Pokemon Usenet group. I also found one use of the verb, but in all caps, and a couple other cites I put on the cites page. Searching Usenet (via Google Groups) for "vworp" -TARDIS -drwho may turn up enough citations to cite the interjection, maybe the verb, but probably not the noun. (Maybe my search is too narrow, and citations that mention a TARDIS but not the show are OK?)
As an aside, I poked around a bit for information on where this was coined (since FICTION only applies to terms "originating in fictional universes", not [by my reading] something coined outside of it but in reference to it, like Whovian or Superwholock; I see a book and article saying it's the term used in the comic, implying it did indeed originate there (and I haven't seen any indication otherwise).
- -sche (discuss) 06:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

It is the word used in the BBC TV subtitles on the show (difficult to add cites from that). SemperBlotto (talk) 09:00, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

It is in the subtitles because it's in the script, presumably. That is not relevant to our written policies. I mean, Death Eater is written in the Harry Potter books but that doesn't give it any magical(?) inclusion here. Equinox ◑ 09:29, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I've cited several things from DVD subtitles, and they've generally considered acceptable under CFI.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I certainly consider TV shows or movies that are archived by libraries on DVDs (etc) "durably archived" just like the library's books. The issue is that the show is not "independent of reference to that [fictional] universe" that it depicts, in which the word was coined, which WT:FICTION requires. But that makes me realize: that's if we're defining the word as the thing from that fictional universe (the sound of the TARDIS). If we use the non-Who citations I found to define it more broadly (as I partially have already) as pertaining to any teleportion/(de)materialization (just mentioning Doctor Who as the coiners in the etymology), Doctor Who can be one of the citations for that, just like Doctor Who is among the citations for Citations:transmat alongside Star Trek and Supergirl. (Each POS/sense would still need at least two non-Who citations even then, which are hard to find in any consistent capitalization.) - -sche (discuss) 03:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

To my surprise, I think I've cited the interjection (or the noun, if the citations should be moved there). None of the first three posts or the pages they're from ever mentions "Doctor" or "TARDIS" AFAICT, though one is clearly alluding to it, referring to a police box. The fourth citation (Snyder's While the Black Stars Burn) is a Doctor Who book, but cf my comment above.
I'm inclined, given the small number of citations available for either, to take the potentially noun-y "a vworp" citations and the "vworp vworp noise" and "grunting sound—vworp-vworp-vworp!" citations to either all be the interjection or all be the noun, since they convey the same basic sense and there aren't enough citations to attest both parts of speech separately.
The verb is probably not cited yet: one cite is of "VWORPing sound" with odd caps and more reference to noise than teleporting per se, ditto "a 'vworping' noise". "Box vworped its way off the stage" and "vworps me all [over]" convey the sense well but both works specifically reference Doctor Who. "VWORPING all over the Summit" conveys the definition well and is independent of DW but has bad caps. - -sche (discuss) 04:37, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The 1997 verb cite is good, it never explicitly mentions "Doctor Who" or the "TARDIS". The 2012 cite is not about Doctor Who, but is capitalized. The 1998 cite does elsewhere mention the "TARDIS", and the 2013 cite is explicitly about Doctor Who. So, the verb would seem to fail. - -sche (discuss) 20:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Noun merged with interjection. Interjection passed, verb failed. - -sche (discuss) 20:49, 11 May 2020 (UTC)